The Master Butchers Singing Club Quotes
"To come alive after dying to oneself was dangerous. There was far too much to feel, so he must seek, he thought, only shallow sensations."
"Breathing low, he collected himself, and stilled his tears with the power of his quietness."
"He had seen the flash of a man's smile through telescopic sights in the instant before his sniper’s bullet shattered the distant face."
"The strength required to hold her was a minute portion of the strength he actually possessed."
"Each year it increased, the phenomenon of strength."
"The light pouring through the curtains made a liquid sound, he thought, an emotional and female sound as it moved across the ivory wall."
"His dreams black dreams from which he woke with no memory."
"Fidelis would marry Eva. Later, when she agreed to his plan and when she kissed him, he tasted on her tongue and on the skin of her throat several layers of meaning."
"He could have stood there with her for hours."
"Her fragrance, as he lifted his face away from hers, possessed the fading sharp persistence of the secret flowers of the blackest pines."
"They were something else. They were not-quite-but-more-than family."
"A child down the road was struck blind. For weeks Delphine found herself groping her way through the nightmare in which she was told she was blind as well."
"Perhaps they were affected by the smell’s range and power."
"The dead were complicated in their helplessness, and made everyone around them helpless, too, except the Strubs."
"You’d think the mosquitoes would bite him, at least, to get drunk themselves."
"She could not get it fresh and it turned hard by noon if by chance you did. It wasn’t real bread."
"The dog immediately loved Eva like a sister... Clearly, the dog considered Eva her colleague, her mate in the task of protecting the dim-witted sheep, the men, from blundering into danger."
"If it broke, it would break violent, Delphine thought as she filled a bucket. She didn’t care how the heat broke—bring on the twister, bring on the volcano, the mighty wind of a hurricane—only make it cease."
"He had the exquisite budded lips of a courtesan, and when he spoke it was hard not to watch them move, just as a rose might if it were to speak."
"The quality of the brittle substance that sealed the cellar door shut was extremely memorable, and Delphine had wondered at that one particular ingredient."
"I am thinking so fast and furious. I see things."
"I don’t know what it is. But big. Much more big."
"Nothing can get rid of me because I am already included into the pattern."
"Life was a precious feat of daring, she saw, improbable as Cyprian balancing, strange as a feast of slugs."
"There flowed between them an odd and surprising electricity. Their gaze was a power—comforting, frightening."
"His voice was warm and pure. Markus closed his eyes. His father’s voice brought the taste of smooth, brown caramel into his mind."
"You’re going to stay with us, here, until your dad gets back."
"Did Emil and Erich get the shits?" "Oh, did they!"
"By the way," she said, "lay low if the sheriff drives up."
"I don’t need to know how come you left, though you can tell me if you want."
"You can make some money from these animals," she told them.
"Everything is good about you," said Cyprian, sighing over his full stomach.
"I have no idea what you’re referring to," she coldly said.
"A liar works twice as hard in his life as an honest man."
"It was just a thing that must be left alone."
"They were upright, breathing, not in any visible distress."
"She stopped trying to distract him with poems or amuse him with games."
"What awful something might be hers to scrub and wash, she didn’t know, but she couldn’t overcome even the phantom of her disgust."
"She nursed him carefully along during the day, running back from the customers to make him eat the heavy dumpling soup that Eva had taught her to make for the boys when they were sick."
"He slept for hours, then started awake the way he had that morning, staring at the ceiling."
"He felt a terrible fear for his father, for them all, mixed with a deep embarrassment that he had lost all sense of duty and of time and fallen half asleep with her against him."
"He knew things were different between himself and Eva, that there was something greater than the thing the other men discussed."
"The beer wasn’t much, but the whiskey, that was different. The taste was harsh and golden, the burn sweet."
"In spite of her grown-up clothing and makeup and car, she seemed younger than Mazarine."
"The cold had deepened, and the skin of their hands and faces numbed in the wind."
"Gradually, their eyes adjusted to the snow light outside the car and the world turned a distinct blue with black shadows pooling in the ditches."
"‘Aren’t you going to kiss me?’ asked Betty. ‘I’m starting to wonder what’s wrong with you.’"
"Her brassiere was made of something warm and tight, a smooth fabric."
"‘I’ve got to get out,’ he said, opening the car door. ‘I’ve got to walk.’"
"He was so filled with the mission of his walk, and the drama of leaving Betty, that he became convinced that Mazarine would know and understand that he was due to arrive."
"‘To come in,’ he answered, now understanding this would not be the way he’d imagined it, but very different, ‘just for a minute.’"
"During the day, an interior restlessness had plagued Delphine, an itch to say what must be said."
"Listen here," she burst out. "Cyprian is like a brother to me. We’re not married and we don’t do anything together. He doesn’t want to."
"What does it matter?" he said, low. "Cyprian saved Markus. He risked his life, dragged him out of the earth."
"I doubt he’s coming back," she said. "If he does, it won’t be to live with me."
"Nothing can fill the ache of the abyss," he said one night to his singing cronies.
"Your head’s in the dirt. He’s an old wino, Delphine. They do not change."
"I’m happy about it," said Markus. "It’s like you already live here."
"God made schnapps for a reason and one reason only. He left a hole in us."
"You have no idea what a war means!" Delphine tried not to raise her voice or drive him off. But his willful ignorance was making her passionate.
"So if we married it would be the same thing all over again."
"One after the other, Fidelis saw the faces of the men he’d destroyed, as in an album or a keepsake book of death."
"He could no more stop his brain from paging through them, once it started, than he could stop the wind from blowing across the plains."
"Sometimes in his mind it worked for Fidelis to stand on the black cover and hold the book shut underneath the same hobnailed boots he had worn then."
"No wonder the other men had hated him and feared him, except Johannes."
"I was standing by my window in the early morning, Feeling no worry and feeling no care."
"I greeted the postman who smiled with no warning, And told me the day would be fair."
"The walls of the bedroom Fidelis had shared with Eva were a pale maple-colored plaster."
"One day when things at the shop were slow, Delphine cleaned out the room."
"They leaned toward one another in concentration and let the music carry them."
"Ah! friends, let’s drink and lift our bottles. No. No one can predict love."
"He’d lost his stillness, his capacity for utter cessation, the talent he’d once possessed for slowing his heart and drawing only the slightest breath."
"The strange inclination took him at one point to shout aloud, and he did, in the booming dark wind."
"Delphine knew already that he wasn’t going to listen to her or believe her, but she was determined to make some impression."
"Nobody says what it’s really like, Markus, to the young men. No one says boys get mangled."
"He was panting, his breath squeezed by the effort of not remembering."
"He was extremely cold. Ashamed of his shaking hands, he pressed his fingers between his knees."
"They leaned toward each other no matter what they were doing. Dazzled, electric, they laughed too quickly, ran out of breath, made gestures unexpectedly clumsy."
"The strange singing of the light. It gleamed in fragments of a rich song off the floor’s farther reaches, where no one was allowed, and the tiles still bore their original morning polish."
"The singing stopped. A stunning rip of anguish widened his eyes in shock. Delphine’s face blurred. The light dimmed, the singing stopped."